At Zumiez Inc. headquarters in Everett, the office is abuzz with employees getting ready for Couch Tour 2008.

The hype -- official slogan: "It's Killer!" -- is for a national mall tour that includes an amateur skate contest, performances by pro-skate teams and live music by local bands. The 12- stop tour is geared toward teenagers and begins in Puyallup on Saturday.

"It's grass-roots," founder and board Chairman Tom Campion said Wednesday. "It's giving back to them for shopping in our stores."

Staying cool among teens is one of Zumiez's biggest business strategies, even as foot traffic into stores falls in accordance with a national retail slump, executives said Wednesday at the company's annual shareholder meeting. Zumiez has been hit particularly hard in California, Arizona, Nevada and Florida.

Chief Executive Richard Brooks said that the teen retailer is focusing on four strategies:

Preserving the company culture. "It's about believing in people and empowering our young managers out there," Brooks said.

Growing to 800 stores nationwide, from 308 currently. "Growth for us as a standalone objective is about giving opportunities to our young retailers," Brooks said.

Offering unique products by hip brands. "We are an action sports lifestyle retailer," Brooks said. "We can get access to the most core action sports brands in the industry."

Investing in people, including Zumiez University, which trains new sales staff. "Our obligation is to teach them to drive sales," Brooks said.

Zumiez has about 4,500 employees nationwide, and the average age of its managers is 23. Employees who sell more than $100,000 worth of gear per year are treated to a snowboarding bash. The last one was in Keystone, Colo.

The third-annual shareholder meeting was held in a boardroom there Wednesday. The only people wearing sport coats at the shareholder meeting were the two auditors from Moss Adams LLP.

The company's 125,000- square-foot distribution warehouse sits behind the office space, which is filled with photos of teenagers acting goofily and having fun.

"If you look at the best retailers right now, they are focusing on the customer," said Matt Hyde, an executive vice president at REI who is on the Zumiez board. "People spend money on what they care about. But they drop off things they don't care about."

Brooks said that a bright side of the current economic environment is that it gives Zumiez leverage to negotiate better rates with its landlords. "We have a strong balance sheet," he said he tells mall landlords. "We're the people you should be betting on."

After the meeting, Brooks said that the retail cycle would remain tough until people adjust to higher gas prices and resume their old buying habits. "The one thing that hasn't changed is that teen kids want to look cool," he said.

Zumiez net sales for its first quarter, which ended May 3, grew 14 percent, but profit fell to $1.4 million and comparable store sales fell less than 1 percent.